


Sure looks strange to me

by dancinguniverse



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: Sam's leap into twelve-year-old Jenny seems as normal as any leap can be—until he finds himself traipsing through the dark, hunting whatever just fell from the sky.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Longpig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Longpig/gifts).



The light hasn’t even faded from Sam’s eyes from the Leap when something solid kicks him in the chest, knocking him flat on his back. It takes him a moment to realize he’s not hurt, that the ground under his head is soft cool grass, that whatever hit him hadn’t been enough to hurt. He blinks and sits up, and a girl is staring at him, her jersey smeared with grass stains, hands on her hips.

“Why didn’t you block that?”

Sam looks around. There’s a man jogging toward him in a black polo shirt, whistle around his neck. “Jenny, you okay?”

Jenny. Sam looks down at his slim arms and legs, deeply tanned and soft with youth, his cleats and his own dirt-smeared jersey and athletic shorts and the dark braid hanging over his shoulder. Oh, boy.

“I’m fine,” he says, and pushes himself to his feet. Next to the ref he’s quite short, and it’s disorienting. The ref tosses the soccer ball back to him, and Sam stares at it for a moment. He can’t place the memory, but he remembers very clearly yelling at soccer matches, watching the players race back and forth on the field. He doesn’t think he played much himself, but this much he knows.

He pitches the ball back into play as hard as he can, and his teammates seem to accept this. They race after the ball, and play resumes.

Luckily, Sam’s teammates are better than he is, and they keep the ball in play in the far goal area, leaving him time to look around and attempt to place himself. He’s in a standard suburban sports area, probably a local park. The sun is shining, the grass green, trees whispering reassuringly around the edge of the field. A line of parents watch the game and yell encouragement from the sidelines.

Sam guesses, watching his teammates and the opposing team chasing the ball back and forth on the field, that he’s about twelve years old. He studies his hands with their short nails, painted in blue glitter. Jenny, he thinks again. He watches the sidelines, watching to see who’s watching him. Are his parents out there, rooting for him?

They’re not, he figures out eventually, after the game ends and the other girls line up for high fives, Sam bringing up the rear when he belatedly realizes what’s happening. They scatter back to the sidelines, Sam following the other girls in blue jerseys like his. He stands awkwardly as all the other girls pick up water bottles and backpacks, most of them dispersing back to their parents. Sam watches in vain, but none of the adults catch his eye, and finally he realizes that one of the girls has sidled up to him and is frowning at him curiously.

“Who are you looking for?” she asks.

“My parents,” Sam says, trying and mostly failing at not making it sound like a question.

“Oh,” she says, surprised. “That would be nice. If they saw you play.”

Sam catches her tone and looks over at her again. She’s watching him with concern, mouth turned down a little at the corners, eyes sad.

“Yeah,” Sam says, putting it together. “But that would be weird too, right?”

She shrugs. “First time for everything.” She follows Sam’s gaze over the rapidly dispersing parents. “I don’t think they’re here today though.”

“Right,” Sam says, and follows her and the general flow of children and parents out toward the parking lot.

“Don’t forget your bag,” she says, and looks pointedly at a faded purple backpack on the edge of the field.

“Right,” Sam repeats. “Thanks.”

“Did you do that essay for Mr. Carleton yet?” she asks, and Sam shakes his head, plowing ahead blindly.

“Ah, no, I don’t think so. Not yet. What’s that on again?”

“Jenny!” And she proceeds to explain to him how it’s only the most important project they’ve ever done, and Sam nods and tries to remember how many PhDs he has, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has no idea what The Giver is about.

On the plus side, whoever his friend is clearly does, and she talks at length until they reach a square house with white siding and a rusting Chevy in the driveway. “Well. You should get to work. You want to borrow my notes?”

“Sure,” Sam agrees, and takes the looseleaf she pulls carefully out of a folder.  _Kendra Tremple_  is written across the top in fat, loopy cursive, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. “Good night, Kendra!” he calls as she disappears into the house, and she throws a wave over her shoulder. For lack of any better options, he keeps walking down the street they’d been on, glancing hopefully into front windows and porches of every house he passes, hoping someone will look out and wave him—Jenny—in.

“1334 Juniper,” Als’s voice says over his shoulder, and Sam jumps. “That’s a left on the next block, and then a right,” Al continues, circling around him to eye Sam up and down with an unnervingly benevolent smile. “Sam. You’re adorable.”

“Please tell me you have something more useful than that.”

Al pulls out his device with a flourish. “Jenny Kirkwood, age one.” He frowns, and pokes at the handset. “Twelve. You have parents who will get divorced in a year’s time, and a younger brother, age 9. We’re in Decorah, Iowa, and the year is 1986.”

“I’m friends with Kendra Tremple,” Sam tells him, and Al’s eyes widen.

“ _The_ Kendra Tremple?” He looks over his shoulder. “Ziggy?” he yells, and pokes at the handset for a moment while they walk.

“I don’t know,” Sam admits. “Who is she?”

Al lets out a low whistle. “Yeah, that’s her. Sam, she’s gotta be it. Good on you, you little munchkin.” Sam rolls his eyes, but Al isn’t paying attention. “You haven’t been around, but she won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.”

“Last year?”

“Yeah, youngest ever Peace Prize winner. She’s great. You should hear her talk.” Sam eyes him, but for once, the lascivious gleam is absent from his eyes, and it seems like genuine admiration. Sam blinks.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Al thwacks the handset again. “No idea,” he says after it screeches at him a few times. “Ziggy has to run a few more scenarios. Didn’t realize Kendra was part of your story. Give it a little bit. I’ll see if the real Jenny has anything else to say. You just,” he grins. “Do your homework, sweetheart.”

And Sam, not wanting to tank a child’s English grade, does. He finds his house first, but it was just where Al had suggested, and his parents don’t pay him enough attention to have any suspicions about whether he is or isn’t any good at pretending to be a twelve-year-old girl. He sets the table when instructed, and eats dinner, and after dinner he makes a good faith effort to remember what Kendra had said about the book. Up in his bedroom—Sam has a brief moment of indecision, but figures soccer and dinosaurs are more likely than football and GI Joes—he finds a copy of The Giver in his backpack with the bookmark placed nearly at the end.

“Sorry,” he murmurs aloud, and starts back at the beginning, curling up on Jenny’s bed among her nest of pillows and stuffed animals. He’s probably not here to earn Jenny an A on her paper, but he might as well not risk it.

He’s been reading for a half-hour or so when a flash of light draws his gaze to the window. Sam scrambles across the bed, catching the end of the trail where it arcs a clear line of light off to the southeast, brightening at the end with a greenish flash. Sam stares, eyes wide.

There’s a burst of static from his desk, and a voice. “Jenny? Jenny, do you copy?”

Sam jumps, and then shoves aside a novel and some bottles of nail polish, and grabs the walkie-talkie that’s the source of the voice. “Uh, yes? Yes, I copy?”

“ _Did you see that?”_  The voice is Kendra’s, Sam is pretty sure, though it’s distorted by static and her shriek of excitement, though Sam’s not far off from the feeling himself. Meteors that large aren’t common. “That was the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen!”

“A superbolide,” Sam says automatically. “Must have been at least a few meters across.”

“You pulled that out of your butt,” Kendra giggles. “How close do you think it hit?”

Sam peers into the woods, now dark as if nothing had ever passed. “Pretty close,” he admits. “That flash at the end was bright. Weird we didn’t hear or feel anything when it hit though.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kendra enthuses. “Meet you by the creek?”

“Wait, what?” Sam thinks about the adults sitting downstairs. “Isn’t it kind of late?”

“Since when do you care?”

“Uh,” Sam says coherently. He wonders if he’s supposed to be the adult in this conversation. “Wouldn’t it be safer to go tomorrow?”

“It’s Decorah, Jenny,” Kendra says scornfully. “What’s going to get us, a rabid deer?” While Sam fumbles for a reply, she continues. “Look, I’m going. Are you meeting me or not?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Um, could we meet at my house, instead?”

“What’s wrong with you? The creek’s ten feet from your back gate. How lazy are you?”

“Right,” Sam says, and looks around for a pair of sneakers. “Never mind.”

Al shows up as Sam is tiptoeing down the stairs. Jenny’s parents are watching television, their backs to the stairs and the hall. “Sneaking out already? Sam, you troublemaker.”

Sam jumps, and presses a finger to his lips. Not, of course, that Jenny’s parents can hear anything, but it’s not like Sam can respond, either. He continues his creep down the stairs. “Where are you running off to?” Al asks anyway, following down the stairs after him, heedless of the sheen of his coppery jacket, or the creaks his footsteps won’t make. Sam slips through the door he hopes—and guesses correctly—leads to the basement. Al passes right through after him.

“There was a meteor or something that came down in the woods,” Sam whispers when he thinks he’s far enough from the door. He walks with a little more confidence toward the outside basement door. “We’re going to go check it out.”

“Oh  _ho_ ,” Al says. “We are, are we? Who’s we?”

“Not everything is about—whatever you think it’s about. I’m in eighth grade!”

“Eighth grade,” Al muses, reminiscent. “That was the year I took Lucy Forester out behind the bleachers. She had these big brown eyes, and she was mature for her age, if you—“

“I know what you mean,” Sam cuts him off. “Anything more about Jenny?”

“Jenny, right,” Al says, coming back to himself. “Well, it looks like Jenny goes through some rough times, Sam. Some minor charges. She enrolls in college but doesn’t graduate. But it’s hard to say what causes it. Maybe it starts with sneaking out at night?”

“I’m just meeting Kendra,” Sam whispers. They’re outside by now, Sam skirting the windows of light cast from inside, Al striding blithely through. Sam reaches the back gate and jumps it rather than fiddling with the latch, and finds a reasonably clear path to follow. “We’re not getting up to anything.”

“Sam, you’re twelve years old and you’re sneaking out of the house in the pitch dark. You’re getting up to something.”

“You know, if you’re not going to be helpful,” Sam starts, but then he hears the creek burbling nearby and quiets himself.

Kendra is waiting for him, a flashlight shining down at her feet, and she swings it up when Sam approaches, feet scuffling through the eternal dead leaves that coat the floor of any woods. “You ready?” Kendra asks, voice hushed. Unlike Al, she feels the darkness pressing in, the tension of sneaking out after dark.

Sam has to admit they are indeed getting up to something. “Let’s go,” he whispers back.

“Have fun,” Al calls after him, and steps through a bright beam of light into the imaging chamber. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

The door slides shut, and Sam shakes his head. “That’s a slim list.”

“What?” Kendra asks, and Sam hurries to join her where she’s already started further into the woods.

“Nothing.”

They walk for a while in the dark. The moon is up, but its silvery light only penetrates so far, and they’re reliant on the flashlight’s narrow, dancing beam for their footsteps. The brightness of the light unnerves Sam, making the woods outside its light even darker by comparison. He reminds himself that he’s not actually twelve, and that he’s the grown-up by a wide margin. But Kendra is a head taller than he is, and it’s hard to keep relative ages in mind when she strides confidently into the dark. “Are we going the right direction?” he tries.

“I think so,” she says, pausing and flicking her flashlight up and down. “It looked like it landed toward the dog park, right?”

“Uh,” Sam says, not having the faintest clue where the dog park is, but assuming it’s where they’re headed. “Maybe a little more north?”

They jump a fence, and just when Sam is opening his mouth to ask if maybe they shouldn’t turn around since it’s a school night and all, Kendra stops dead, and Sam runs right into her. “Holy crap.”

There’s a small crater blown in the leaves and soft dirt of the forest floor, and in the center sits a smoking piece of twisted metal. The smell of ozone and something else is sharp in the air, burned.

“I think we’re going the right way,” Sam manages.

Kendra starts forward again. “Don’t touch it,” Sam cautions, and Kendra flaps an impatient hand at him.

“I’m not an idiot,” she says, but she continues forward anyway, albeit more slowly. “What if it was a plane crash?” she asks.

Sam frowns and looks around. “If it is, we should call 911,” he points out. “It didn’t look like a plane crash.”

The wind sighs in the trees over their heads, and Sam glances around. Surely there should be other people here. They’re not that isolated.

“Jenny.” Kendra shines her flashlight across their path, where even in the dark the signs of debris and singed leaves are evident. Sam studies the metal, and follows her down the path.

They don’t talk much after that. Something has obviously happened, and while Sam tries to downplay it in his head—just some fallen satellite debris, for instance—he had to have leaped for a reason, and he’s getting the bad feeling that this can’t be a coincidence. Kendra can’t know the reason for Sam’s sudden certainly that something big is waiting for them at the end of this path. But she catches his mood anyway, or perhaps the trail gets to her as well, the clear sign of  _something_  gone wrong.

The woods are quiet, and Decorah isn’t so different from Elk Ridge that Sam can’t tell something is very strange. The frogs, cicadas, and other creatures that should orchestrate a deafening nightsong are silent. Only the wind moves around them, the soft sound ominous in the absence of other noise.

Ahead, something drags through the leaves on the ground, the scrape and rustle loud as a gunshot in the quiet.

Kendra stops dead and looks back at Sam, her eyes wide in the dark. He moves up beside her and motions as if to take the flashlight, and she yanks it away, fear fleeing in the face of indignation. She glares at him. “Together,” she whispers. Sam hesitates and then nods, and they walk forward shoulder to shoulder.

The alien is hunched by the base of a maple tree, clutching thin appendages around the wet gash in its skin. Its four eyes are trained on the two girls, but it doesn’t move, except to press itself closer to the tree.

For a long moment, all three of them are frozen to the spot. When the chamber door slides open with its usual flare of light, Sam is the only one to jump.

“Ziggy says there’s some kind of alert going on, all kinds of emergency responses out. Local air traffic reported some bogey in the area.” Al is still frowning down at his handset, oblivious.

“Al,” Sam says quietly, and Kendra twitches by his side.

“Doesn’t look like a meteor. Could be a plane, though there’s nothing registered in the area. Local papers don’t seem to have many details. Ziggy’s got theories, but they’re nutso even for her. Sam, I know she’s got personality, but she’s still supposed to be logical, right? I mean, UFOs are…” he looks up and abruptly loses his focus. “UFOs are…” he tried again. “Sam?” he asks, voice suddenly unsteady.

“Yeah,” Sam replies, and steps forward.

“What are you doing?” Kendra hisses.

“That’s a… a hoax,” Al says weakly, staying firmly on the far side of the clearing, apparently forgetting that he’s not actually there anyway. “Somebody’s playing a trick on you.”

“It’s hurt,” Sam says to both of them. “Look at it.”

“Sam, you don’t know what that thing’s intentions are,” Al points out, “and how do you know it’s hurt, it’s… it’s a…” but he can’t quite bring himself to say the word out loud. Sam continues to edge toward the creature though, and Al moves forward as well, apparently unwilling to let Sam approach alone.

“What are  _you_  going to do about it?” Kendra protests. She seems drawn forward too, though she stays in Sam’s shadow, a few steps back. “We should tell some adults.”

“It’s hurt,” Sam repeats, more certain this time. “Look at it, it’s in pain.” The creature’s breathing—it breathes the Earth air at least somewhat—is a harsh rasp, clearly abnormal, and it shivers in short bursts, clutching and releasing where a dark fluid seeps from one side.

“And you’re what,” Kendra demands, though they’re all still speaking quietly, as if the alien is a wild animal or worse, a bomb primed for explosion. “An alien doctor?”

Al flinches at the word, and Sam shakes his head, though he doesn’t take his eyes off the creature. “No, but I am—“ he cuts himself off, because whatever he is, Jenny certainly isn’t. “I can still help,” he says stubbornly. He has his hands in front of him, palms turned out, and whether or not the gesture means anything to the alien, he figures it works with cornered dogs and spooked horses, and maybe it’s universal after all.

The alien watches him approach, and Sam lowers himself to a crouch. He supposes he’s even less intimidating now, in Jenny’s four-and-a-half-foot frame. “I just want to help,” he says softly, this time for the alien’s dubious benefit. He reaches out and the alien cowers slightly. Sam slows, and points at the obvious injury. “I can at least stop the bleeding,” he says in the same low tone, as reassuring as he knows how. The alien closes two eyes at him, and stops shrinking away.

Sam pulls off his jacket. He’ll need something to wrap the wound with. He hesitates, thinking in equal measure about bloodborne pathogen training and science fiction movies, aliens with acid blood, but he doesn’t have many options. “Kendra, shine the light on the wound, right here.”

Audibly gulping, she shuffles forward, sneakers scuffling through the leaves, and shines her light down. “You’re doing great,” Sam tells her, forgetting for the moment that Jenny’s only 13 herself. Then he touches the alien’s arm.

Al gasps at the same time as Sam, as images flood his mind—images of a desert world, of marvelous spindly buildings, of more creatures like the alien in front of them. Sam sees the creature’s ship, understands in a flash the accident that caused its crash, the terror of the crash landing, the urgent need to find the scattered ship pieces in order to call for the emergency transport back home. The alien is swamped with guilt—they should never have ventured so close—and fear of discovery, and pain from their wound. They feel a tendril of hope—for the possibility of kindness. They’re reading Sam, just as he is reading them, and through him the alien suddenly sees  _Sam_ , somehow, instead of Jenny; sees Al, too, and erupts in a chitter of surprise.

Sam releases the creature’s arm, falling onto his back in a panic. “Sam, what in the heck?” Al yells, jumping back as the creature aims all four eyes—suddenly flashing purple—at Al, clicking and making a flurry of scratching noises. “What are you doing? What was that?”

“Stop yelling,” Sam says, pushing himself back to a crouch, and Kendra clutches his shoulder tightly.

“I’m not,” she says. “What just happened?”

“They… talked to me,” Sam realizes.

“It didn’t say anything,” Kendra argues.

“Talked,” Al gripes, though he’s already edging forward again, peering at the creature with not a little suspicion. “Sam, can that thing see me now? Why did  _I_  feel that?”

“You’re locked on to me,” Sam guesses. “They talk through a mental connection and touch, but since you’re locked onto my brain patterns… I don’t know. It’s a theory.”

“What are you talking about?” Kendra demands, and Sam gently takes her hand from his shoulder, extending it carefully. He raises an eyebrow at the alien, and they close two eyes again, a gesture he understands now means acceptance. He lays Kendra’s hand on their arm, and her eyes go wide.

She turns, her eyes ping-ponging between Sam and the alien, and then she casts a wild look uneasily close to where Al stands, peering anxiously at their group, Ziggy chirping and squawking away. “Jenny, I don’t…” she licks her lips nervously. “You’re not Jenny?”

“It’s a long story,” Sam says apologetically, finally setting to ripping at Jenny’s jacket, which is luckily a light cotton number, though its cheerful strawberry pattern is about to be put to gory use. “Jenny’s fine, I promise. She’s coming back soon.”  _I hope_ , he adds to himself. God knows what it will take to trigger the leap, but he thinks they’re on the right track. If he can patch their new friend up. If they can find the ship’s transponder. If no one comes to drag them away before they finish. “Al, where are those search parties? And can Ziggy find the ship’s communications box? Have him analyze the path, he should be able to work it out.” Al finally looks down at his handset, and sets to punching buttons.

“I can’t quite see…” Kendra lifts her hand from the alien’s arm and replaces it, squinting at Sam the whole time. “Why can it see you and I can’t? Who’s Al?” she waves her other hand over Sam’s shoulder, fingertips passing like a ghost through the edge of Al’s jacket. She squints again in Al’s direction, but she clearly can’t quite make him out, the connection one link too far away.

“Something about how I see myself, I think,” Sam hazards. “And Al’s a friend. Kendra, I really need you to hold that light steady.”

She does, falling silent, and Sam focuses on tying up the wound, working through Al’s harassments about the search parties tramping steadily toward them through the woods. There’s not much he can do for sterilization. He has to hope the advanced technology he can see scattered through the alien’s mind will account for that. He looks over, and realizes Kendra has gone from resting her hand on the creature’s arm to twining her fingers with their more delicate appendages.

“Okay, that’s it,” Sam says, though he feels far from certain. “I can’t do anything else here. Does Ziggy have any ideas yet where the ship is?”

“Yeah,” Al says, already peering out into the dark. “Should be over this way. Not too much farther.”

Between the two of them, Kendra and Sam support the alien’s slight weight. Al leads the way, though only Sam is able to see him consistently, nudging their little trio right or left as needed. In the distance, men are yelling to each other, their flashlights occasionally piercing through the trees like erratic lighthouse beams. But then Al is stopping and circling around a small black box, a red light blinking steadily, and the alien releases a wave of relief. They found it.

Sam has seen the creature’s mind, and he’s happy for them to return to their people. But he holds the alien back when they would have reached for the box, stopping it until they turn and look at him. Even with a mental connection, their language is mostly gibberish, but ideas are clear. Sam shows them the accelerator, his scattershot memories of the lab, and his ever-present, wild yearning for  _home_.

 _You have so much technology, so much knowledge,_  he tries to explain.  _Can you help me?_

The alien peers with interest verging on awe at Project Quantum Leap, but shares a wave of grief with Sam. Their people know many things, but not about leaping.

Sam hangs his head, swallowing past a lump in his throat. He had to ask.

The alien turns to Kendra, and they share their own moment of silent communication. Finally, the alien steps back, and Kendra helps them settle on the ground next to their transponder box. They offer a complicated wiggle of one appendage in Al’s general direction, and Al waves faintly back.

“The Board’s not gonna believe this one,” he mutters as the alien opens the box and presses a glowing pad.

"Yeah," Sam agrees absently, and then realizes. "Wait, how detailed are your reports?"

Al just grins and waves at him. "Bye, Sam." And the world disappears in a blaze of light. 

 


End file.
